War Porn
)[10][11] The intertwining narratives revolve around the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in the early years of the war and its impact on American and Iraqi soldiers and civilians.
Focal characters include Aaron "Sto" Stojanoski, a recently discharged corporal in the National Guard whose Military Police unit was deployed to Iraq in 2003 and stationed at Camp Crawford and the Abu Ghraib detention center.
The central character is Qasim al-Zabadi, an Iraqi university mathematics professor living with his extended family in Baghdad and Baquba during the war; he later serves as an interpreter for US occupation forces.
[25] Preoccupied with their own personal and professional uncertainties, they are ignorant of the realities related to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the experiences of US and allied troops.
Mel, in her defense, launches into a tirade against the "Fucking homophobic, misogynistic bigots" and proposes they seek sanctuary in Canada if President George W. Bush is reelected in the 2004 elections.
"[31] As a liberal critic of the US invasion of Iraq, Matt becomes anxious when informed that Aaron is a soldier returning from combat duty in Baghdad.
The conversation is initially confined to topics that avoid direct reference to the War in Iraq: "...cats v. dogs…how to best marinate tofu…"[35] Tattoos are compared, revealing a jaguar modeled on an Aztec horoscope; a fleur-de-lis; a flaming skull with several barbed tribal bands.
Wilson, a well-read youth who has dreams of becoming a poet, quickly grasps that he is a member of a foreign occupying force, despised by much of the Iraqi population.
Wilson's indoctrination includes are PowerPoint pep talks, tasking his unit with "protecting America from the insidious evils of terrorism and Islamic Fundamentalism that now threaten our way of life.
Captain Yarrow (Battery Commander) Lieutenant Krausse and Sergeant Perry lead several Humvees to locate the MPs.
At three in the morning, after retracing their routes that evening, the Battery Commander's 9mm automatic is located next the cart and donkey: "Good work, men.
"[49] When reports of Improvised explosive devices in roadways snarl traffic, Wilson uses his Humvee to plow paths through Iraqi civilian vehicles.
His internal narrative maintains that he was once "sensitive" and "a poet", but his external persona is a that of a strict disciplinarian, who longs for a catharsis: "Please Jesus…let me fucking kill somebody.
The educated classes of Iraq are torn between those citizens who wish to retain the Sunni Islam leadership under Saddam Hussein, and those who wish to replace it and establish as democratic-republic similar to the United States.
The military that is tasked with resisting US forces is itself divided: "The Sunni officers despised the almost wholly Shi'a ranks, and vice versa, and everything was infiltrated by Mukhabarat.
Salman is a colleague of Qusim at the Baghdad university and a descendant of agrarian peasants; he is the only male survivor of murderous pogroms by Saddam's Republican Guards in the 1991 Shi'a Uprising.
[62] Salman observes Qusim flirting with student and beauty Anouf Hamadaya: her brother is a rich black marketeer who works for the murderous criminal Munir Muhanned.
[64] Aziz instructs Salman to collect information on a university employee who is suspected of working with Munir Muhanned to encode messages for American forces in Kuwait, namely, Qusim al-Zabadi.
[65] Qusim stays in the Baghdad home of his paternal uncle Mohammed and his wife, aunt Thurayya; she despises Qasim for abandoning his family in Baqubah.
US marines enter Baghdad and the streets are filled with tanks and humvees, the city reverberates with small arms fire and artillery shell explosives.
After the fall of the Saddam Hussien regime, Qusim is fearful that warlords and fundamentalist Islamists will discover he is serving US forces, he believes they will kill his family.
[77] Wilson is alerted by an Iraqi informant of an imminent bomb threat, but discovers no system exists to convey the intelligence to military authorities.
In these combat zones, Wilson views images coming out of detention centers of Iraqis being tortured and humiliated by National Guard Military Police.
While Matt is showing off his high-tech equipment, Wendy reveals to the women that Aaron is suffering from an undiagnosed but troubling form of war-related stress.
An Iraqi girl "Connie", arrested for petty theft, models nude for prison guards and performs other sexual favors for cash.
[85] Literary critic Hilary Plum, writing in The Fanzine, comments on the merits of Scranton's literary style in War Porn: The writing [in the Wilson narrative "B"] is bitingly vivid, moves so fluently through the speeds of boredom, violence, uncertainty, machismo—yet, too, there is a glimmer of metafictional awareness...in Qasim's section [narrative "C"], [the] style shifts, becomes lusher and more capacious in perspective; in the rhythms of the syntax and narration there is to my ear a gentle echo of great works of contemporary Arabic fiction as they arrive in English translation…to write from a perspective distant in language, ethnicity, culture from one's own, a perspective indeed from the other side of a war.
He defies the American cultural tenet that our military is lawful, moral, and organized, depicting it instead as it more probably is: needlessly brutal, a blunt instrument rather than a refined machine.
[87]Hoenicke adds: "We experience three distinct narrators throughout, three different prose styles, and unannounced time changes, the text oscillating frequently between present and past…War Porn isn't easy to comprehend...We are meant to be overwhelmed.
"[88] Literary critic Eric London, writing in the World Socialist Web Site, calls War Porn "the most memorable and aesthetically rich anti-war novel to have emerged in response to the 'war on terror'"[89] London adds "Though the title strikes the reader as an attempt at shock value, the inside jacket explains that 'war porn' means 'videos, images, and narratives featuring graphic violence, often brought back from combat zones, viewed voyeuristically or for emotional gratification.
[93]Colla adds this caveat: Scranton's War Porn, however, diverges sharply from other recent works of fiction about Iraq in such fundamental ways that it is difficult to imagine mainstream critics giving it the same hearty 'thank-you-for-your-service' reception that they normally extend to any title produced by a veteran…Further upsetting the typical narrative...is the fact that the story is told out of order.
